


Tear This World Asunder

by Silberias



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Intrigue!, disguises!, fluffy (?) sanberyn because of reasons, plots most foul!, previously posted on tumblr but now with added editing!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3391274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyrion invites (a curiously receptive) Oberyn Martell to dine with himself and his wife, Sansa, after first meeting him--thinking no doubt that perhaps a relaxed setting will bring about a more relaxed conversation with the Red Viper. </p><p>How wrong he is when he learns just how thick the grass is that has hidden the snakes from view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tear This World Asunder

It was obvious that her little husband did not enjoy the company of the man he brought with him, his introduction was short and to the point of near rudeness. Clad in a strange yellow robe, the Dornish prince looked as at ease as though he were sitting at home. Sansa hated Tyrion for bringing him--she would have to sit prettily and keep from crying, laugh and smile should the men make jokes. So wrapped in her thoughts was she that she almost missed the exchange that the two men had about her--as usual Tyrion talking over her head as though she were a feckless child while Prince Oberyn's eyes were fixed on her.

"Forgive my wife, she has experienced a great loss of late and is not her usual self," Tyrion was just saying when she met Prince Oberyn's gaze. Something in his face made her feel like throwing her wine at him--if only to remind herself of her brothers, of her sister, who had never properly behaved while she had scolded them instead of loving them. She would never get to apologize, she would never feel her mother's fingers braiding her hair, she would never be anyone's lovely eldest daughter again. They had made her a Lannister and it was only the might of Lord Tywin that would keep decent people from spitting on her.

"A great loss, Lord Tyrion? I think that Lady Sansa has had a _devastating_ loss. One that words of comfort cannot begin to plumb the depths of," she blinked in surprise as the Dornishman continued, stealing food from her plate in the most casual manner. As though he were her husband and Tyrion the interloper. She wondered if he was some sort of Lannister trick--that this was Tyrion's particular blend of cruelty, different from that of the rest of his family.

"They tell you to pray, they ask you to talk about it, they tell you to eat, and at every turn remind you that this is not what the dead want from you--that the best sword against death is life, will you not smile and carry on as the dead would want you to?" anger was seeping into the man's voice, building so slowly that she wondered if Tyrion even noticed it. She hung on his every word, feeling alive for the first time since her hopes had been killed by being forced to marry Tyrion Lannister. Prince Oberyn's dark brown eyes didn't leave hers as he stood up and began to pace.

"And yet none of them takes the time," he said, glancing at her, "to realize that there is nothing that will placate the beast that was born in blood, that feeds on your heart. Nothing but more blood. Loss and grief are not like losing milk teeth--where another tooth soon grows to fill the gap after the gum has healed. They refuse to understand that it is a battle waged inside, the only combatants fit to enter the ring are those who have likewise lost," he paused to squeeze her hand and unlike when Tyrion touched her she did not draw away. This man was like Lord Baelish--strange of accent and manner but hypnotizing and the words that fell from his lips were ones she couldn't help but feel were meant to educate. To help.

Tyrion at her side was glowering at the display she was engaging in but Sansa didn't care. He merely grew uncomfortable when she shared her grief with him--changing the subject from _her_ nightmares to _his_ memories. This man would not, he had said his piece it seemed.

"They murdered them," she whispered and the Dornishman knelt at her side, taking both of her hands between his own, "they threw my mother's--my mother's body in the river after cutting her throat to the bone. They killed my brother and sewed his direwolf's head to his shoulders and paraded him that way. They killed my father and my sister, and for _what_? My father was the Hand of the King and obeyed the King's order, and for that I was made to look at his head on a spike," her voice was thready and frantic but Prince Oberyn did not look away from her as she spoke. Though hot tears burned her eyes and cheeks as she continued she couldn't look away either, not when he paid her heed--not when he'd stayed respectfully silent for her.

"And yet you live on, and you ask the Gods you almost don't believe in anymore why--why them? Why not you? What might you do or give to have them back?" he said softly when she trailed off. Sansa nodded, fresh tears falling from her eyes. Prince Oberyn's eyes were tender then as he lifted her hands to kiss the knuckles.

"In these cases you live on, dear lady, to remember. There are those who would have you move on--sweetly imploring, for your own good, to _forget_ ," he spat the word like it was a curse, "because that is how they will bring true dishonor to ignominious deaths. But you cannot forget. You cannot succumb to this grief, but that is only so that you might bring vengeance to those who wronged you. So," he stood up only enough to sit once more on the chair he'd left, one of his hands leaving hers to take a lemoncake, "we carry on to remember them, we pray that they will be patient with us, we remind those around us what was done and we eat to stay strong so we may avenge them." He offered her the cake and she felt her stomach kink with nerves as she leaned forward to take a bite of it.

She had to do these things that those around her told her to do, she understood as she chewed on the sweet and tart morsel, not because she wanted or needed to for her own sake. Someday she would get the courage together to stab Joffrey, to watch blood well up from between his wormy lips, to not care as the Kingsguard dragged her from his horrible corpse. But that day was a long way off, and she would need to be alive to see it and that somehow made the day brighter, the air cleaner, and her heart lighter.

"Prince Oberyn this is a highly inappropriate--"

Tyrion's words nearly punctured her bizarre happiness save for the fact that Prince Oberyn did not jump away from her as everyone always seemed to. Even Lord Baelish would twitch away from her as though he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't--for she was the daughter of a disgraced traitor.

"I was only comforting Lady Stark," the Dornishman said with a barest hint at courtesy, "she seemed so very melancholy."

"Lady _Lannister_ has been feeling poorly of late as I explained to you on the walk here."

Sansa idly wondered if Tyrion would order her hurt somehow if she played along with Prince Oberyn rather than being dutiful and obedient. It was taxing to be good, to make sure that no one noticed her or wanted to talk to her, and now she wondered what it might have been like to marry someone like Prince Oberyn instead--her septa's lessons trickled in the back of her mind now, reminding her that he was also the second son of his House and that his philandering ways were just as well documented as Tyrion's were. He would surely not have made her stay here, not when the promise of a family seat awaited them somewhere in the world.

"I am no more Sansa Lannister than you are Lord of Casterly Rock," she spat as she let Prince Oberyn fit his body against hers, rebelling as her sister and brothers might have had they lived. She turned her eyes back up to the Dornish prince at her side, a man who stared at her with admiration in his eyes, and murmured a quiet thanks to him. Tyrion stared at her in shock, too stunned to move as she let herself be drawn away by Prince Oberyn.

"Would my lady agree to flee this fair city with me?" he asked, grinning as she gaped at him. It had all been in fun until now when everything, as it always did, came crashing together back to reality, "we will have to bring your little husband with us, I fear, for only a Dornish septon would dare break the marriage of Tywin Lannister's son. Come along, Lord Tyrion, and hear what the future will bring you. Or run to your father bearing tales of treachery, it is no matter to me," Prince Oberyn kissed her hand and then began walking from the terrace. The food had scarcely been touched but Sansa wasn't usually hungry these days and so she didn't mind.

"It just so happens that Lady Qorgyle has brought with her her septon for she is an _especially_ holy woman," he murmured as they walked through the gardens towards the Red Keep, "and this septon's brother's family have recently become great patrons of the Sept of Baelor and the High Septon himself. You'll have to share me with my paramour, but would my lady like to leave this den of blood and filth for a place to actually call home?" Her cheer was gone now as she stared at the ground, her sadness sweeping back into her like the tide.

"You want my claim," she said softly, clutching a little closer to her new companion.

"I want your claim to be your own, my lady. I would see you as free as my niece is. As my children are. Unfortunately that is not something these people will let you have of your own accord and we must force them to."

"My father could have you killed, he'll certainly have _her_ killed. Do you want _that_ , Prince Oberyn? An innocent girl not even older than your sister was?" Tyrion said as he worked to keep up with them. Sansa felt a trill of fear go through her--and it felt glorious to even _feel_ compared to how she'd felt of late. The Dornishman was warm at her side, his clothing and skin smelling of spices and the tang of sweat and the iron-dust of weapons. He had a long straight dagger strapped to his belt and the hilt of it dug into the fleshy bit of her side. His arm went around her at her ribs, holding her firmly against him as they walked to the point where she almost felt like he was just carrying her.

"Do you know that Dorne is not the only place vipers are found, Lord Tyrion? Some of the most deadly snakes warm themselves amongst flowers, eating birds and biting cats that stray too close. The most deadly of such vipers is the feather-eyed viper--yellow and with the eyelashes of the baudiest lady. It lives in the strongest of rosebushes, particularly those of Highgarden," the man at her side said, nonchalant as though they truly discussed light things such as serpents and flowers.

Sansa whose family was dead of treachery understood Prince Oberyn's meaning and she glanced back and down at Tyrion who seemed to almost trip as he paled and gaped up at them.

"My brother has given my niece's hand in exchange for revenge and many other things. First I shall free Lady Sansa of you Lannisters, and then I shall air out this capitol of the stink of you and your Baratheon puppets. You shall stand powerless as your joys are taken from you and taste the medicine that you've dosed so many others with."

As they neared the castle Sansa realized that it was deathly quiet there and that the bells were ringing in the Sept of Baelor--she unconsciously curled closer to the man next to her, worry setting into her heart in the way that it had before her father's execution. There was someone dead, she was sure of it.

"Lord Tyrion--Lord Tyrion, the king has died! The lord Hand as well! They were fighting and they stumbled in the staircase of the Tower of the Hand and fell all the way down. The queen regent demands your presence immediately!" a squire said as he ran out of the keep towards them. Tyrion's eyes were wide in his head as he glanced between them. Sansa's stomach quailed and quivered at this turn of events. Queen Cersei was about to run unchecked as she had when she'd started the events that had taken Father's head from him.

"You must stop the queen," she breathed into Prince Oberyn's shoulder, turning her head against him in some mockery of grief. He responded by kissing her forehead at the hairline and murmuring back:

"She was to take lunch with wily Lady Olenna, was she not?" Sansa nodded, not daring to keep speaking as more people surrounded them. Her companion was not so reticent.

"Then all shall be well, child, and worry not. The Queen of Thorns has ably shielded a slew of snakes, none more dangerous than mine own daughter Tyene who _you_ and many others have known these months as Lady Margaery Tyrell. Lord Tywin invited a viper to his bosom a good while ago, and it is from that viper I knew your suffering."

This news certainly brought her up short and it was only his firm arm around her that kept her moving forward.

"They are thick as thieves and look like sisters for their mothers were. The heiress and the septa now grown into the rose and snake. Poisons and dyes are brewed the same way and my daughter came here in place of her cousin in case such fate as Princess Elia's awaited the girl. Her hair normally flows as silvery white as a Targaryen's."

The path they took into the castle was not one that led to her husband's chambers but towards the extravagant guest wing that had once belonged to the last Targaryen Queen, Rhaella, and her gooddaughter Elia. It was an awful insult to the Dornish to have put them there and Sansa knew that it couldn't have improved this man's mood. She was a little afraid of him, but then lately she was afraid of most men.

It seemed, though, that she ought to also begin to be wary of most women as well--Lady Olenna and Margaery had lied to her, even if Margaery's lies had brought this man to her side to her apparent rescue.

"You must pretend to be as shocked as everyone else, my lady," he said quickly as he showed her into one of the solars his companions occupied, "when Queen Cersei collapses at supper. Play her doting goodsister if it is in you and know that winter has finally come for these Lannisters. Stay here for now and rest in safety," he said as he led her to sit on the shaded balcony and kissed both of her cheeks with dry lips.

The next few days were ones of tense waiting--Prince Oberyn having been called in by Grand Maester Pycelle to further examine the queen for signs of poisoning, which he did determine to be the case and administered an antidote for. An antidote that severely weakened the woman and she wasted away instead of dying quickly. Sansa, whose marriage had been broken by the High Septon himself and wedded instead to Prince Oberyn, had lived in fear that somehow there would be Lannister supporters strong enough to override the sentiment of the court that it was the work of a Faceless Man hired by the last Targaryen, Daenerys the Dragon Mother of Meereen. She had worried the Tyrells would turn their coats for the fourth time in as many years, and men far less refined than even Illyn Payne would come to take her head.

Instead though the Tyrells sheltered Lady Margaery away while flooding the city with their own troops and supporters--indeed only Sansa and Oberyn had been allowed near King Tommen's betrothed.

"You are not upset with me, are you? Please tell me you are not," the other young woman said one day, taking both of Sansa's hands as they stopped to settle in a deserted outlook over the bay. Sansa wondered what the real Lady Margaery looked like, what manner of woman she was. She readily saw that this person, Tyene Sand, had Prince Oberyn's eyes if nothing of his coloring or form.

"I do not know how I feel, in truth," Sansa had managed to say, glancing over at the man who claimed he would take her out of this awful city and somehow return her home and allow her to be her own person once more. She hardly remembered who that girl might have been or grown into. Certainly not one so heartsick as Sansa felt so often of late.

"Let my Father find you a lover, a lover will sooth your heart readily enough. In time you may even forgive me my deceptions," Tyene said. If Sansa looked hard at the roots of the woman's hair she could see the beginnings of blonde locks. It gave her hope, in a strange way, that somehow her sister Arya had concealed herself and that she somehow was alive.

"You were a friend when there were few who would dare to be, and you tried to get me out of here. It seems you might still succeed. There is nothing to forgive for there was truly no trespass," Sansa said, sliding closer to her companion and resting her head on her shoulder. "It does not bother you that a girl your age is wed to your father?" Tyene laughed, resting her head on Sansa's as she did.

"He's had lovers your age, some younger. If you want him he will let you have him, but otherwise he understands how to please himself and that everyone has a preference. Do you remember what I told you when they wed you to Lord Tyrion?"

Sansa couldn't help but smile, remembering the warm feeling in her stomach when this woman had haned her that lovely rose. The warmth of loving friendship and compassion and something more. Tyene turned and kissed the top of Sansa's head before resting her cheek once more against the red hair there.

"Even if it is not with him," Tyene said, "he will see to it that you have every opportunity to be happy once more. He has a paramour, Ellaria Sand, who will hound his shadow should he fail. Do not worry."

And Sansa did not--for her aunt raised the banners of the Arryns and helped Sansa retake the North from the Boltons and the Riverlands from the Freys, and her new husband sent some of his best knights searching for Sansa's sister and turned up with not only Arya but Rickon as well. When he'd led each of them into her solar at Riverrun Sansa had gathered them up and wept harshly, squeezing them incredibly tightly to her sides to the point that even Rickon squeaked for her to let him go. Though she would always have nightmares of Father's death and of what she'd heard of Robb and Mother's ends she would sleep easily knowing these two were safe. 

"I still can't believe you got married to the _Red Viper_ ," Arya babbled on later that evening as she submitted to letting Sansa help her bathe, scrubbing away what seemed to be years worth of dirt and grime. She freely let tears fall from her eyes when they willed it for her precious dignity was nothing in the face of having even two of her siblings back--and the hope that Bran and Jon were both alive somewhere in the High North above the Wall.

"Yes, but not for real married, we've never even slept in the same bed. When I don't need his help anymore he will probably annul the marriage, something about not being beholden to a man for what I want in life."

"You can't!" Sansa giggled at that, hearing from her sister for a moment her own childish tones as she protested something Arya had done.

"And why not?" she asked as she worked some more soap into Arya's dark hair.

"Because he's a prince," Arya mumbled, rubbing the flat of her palm on her knee and rolling little curls of dead gray skin from it, "and after everything you should have a prince--you should have everything you wanted."

"It is because of what I wanted that all of this happ--"

" _No_ ," Arya said emphatically, cupping a bit of the bathwater and washing the gray curls of dead skin off of her knee, "it isn't your fault--it isn't your fault. You were eleven, I was ten--we were _children_. Besides, the Lords of the North want to make Rickon Lord of Winterfell and Uncle Brynden has fished Uncle Edmure out of that Frey dungeon and that doesn't leave us much of anywhere to go--at least anywhere they won't make us do things. What do _you_ want to do?"

Sansa bowed her head and sniffled for she did want--however dimly in her heart and no matter how much she cursed the feeling--to be someone's cherished wife, to have tourney favors laid in her lap, to raise squealing babes that looked like their valiant father. Life was not a song but it did not stop her wanting it. Arya was quiet as she got herself under control once more, making no comment on the whimpering tears.

"I want him to love me. I want him to sleep beside me and to sing me songs--and I know those aren't things he can give me, not fully. But it doesn't stop me imagining a host of little redheaded boys chasing after their dark-haired sisters, and how happy I might be. And I can't tell him--I can't," she said, unable to continue because of how her heart hurt. She did not share with her sister that he'd been melancholy but dutiful to her ever since his paramour had left him for one of his bannermen--that she wished she could ease the worries she saw in his eyes every time he looked at her.

If she'd seen the way her sister's face had hardened perhaps Sansa might not have confided in Arya but as it was she couldn't fully see the set of Arya's mouth and brows--and so the knock on her chamber door later that night was certainly a surprise. Oberyn stood on the other side of it with a winter rose in his hand, leaning on the jamb as though he owned it. Sansa gathered her robe a little closer about herself, self conscious of her loose hair and state of undress.

"May I come in my lady? I would speak with you and lighten your heart if I can."

"Arya," Sansa groaned, shutting the door and slowly pounding her head against it a few times. After several deep breaths she opened the door again to find Oberyn frowning down at the ice blue petals of the rose he held.

"Please come in, my lord," she said, trying not to eye up how his robes hinted at so much but left so much more to the imagination. He had a very pleasing figure, one carefully kept and cultivated through training exercises she'd been too shy to watch herself though his paramour had blatantly invited her to attend them when they'd been in King's Landing. He was beautiful and he knew it, confidence surrounding him like a halo.

"I heard a certain tale from your sister just now--a tale that I have been remiss in my care for you," he started after he took a seat, pausing to draw breath and to think. Sansa rushed to interrupt him though--

"You heard incorrectly, Prince Oberyn, I am incredibly content. You care for my every need," she said but he shot her a knowing look that raised her hackles a little. Why did he not listen to her?

"My paramour and I have parted ways as you know--and since then I had thought us to be courting, but at a pace so as not to scare you. Perhaps I ought to have made that more clear? That you fascinate me and bring such calm light with you into every room that it feels near-religious? That I want to see your smiles each day as I awake and as I sleep? And now your sister comes to me telling me that you think I will set you aside which I shall not unless that is your own earnest wish," he said softly, crossing the room then to kneel at her feet and put the rose into her hands.

"I didn't want to believe any of it--I've been so stupid in the past, never learning," Sansa said, not meeting his eyes, "you've been so kind already when you didn't have to be, my lord."

"And you have been hurt too much, I did not want to add to your heartaches only share their burden," he replied. "Forgive an old fool for his assumptions?"

Sansa chuckled weakly at that, bringing one of his hands up to kiss at his knuckles--the skin rough against her lips.

"You are _my_ old fool, who taught me how to survive heartaches. You've lightened their burden so much that I thought I no longer needed help bearing them. What do you say, Prince Oberyn, will you flee this place with me?"

He stood up, drawing her up with him, and kissed her soundly as he did so.

"I think, Princess Sansa, that that will suit me just fine." This had her laughing loudly and in earnest then as she remembered more of their first conversation--so long ago with her then-husband Tyrion.

"I am no more a princess than you are a maester," she managed to tease though her laughter, though it quickly stilled on her lips for she knew what that sentence had meant back then and what it still meant now--a marriage unconsummated, "though," she started slowly, hesitantly, "perhaps my husband will help me with that difficulty?" Oberyn leaned in to kiss her in answer, his lips moving softly against hers.

"It shall be no difficulty, my lady, no difficulty at all so long as you are sure?" Sansa grinned, cupping the side of his face with one hand, nodding all the way as he lifted her up and walked towards the bed. She was quite certain she'd never been more sure of something in her life.

 


End file.
